New England Footwear CEO aims to revive industry

STRATHAM — Doug Clark, the CEO of New England Footwear, has lofty goals for his small shoemaking company.

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By Jeff McMenemy

seacoastonline.com

By Jeff McMenemy

Posted Dec. 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Jeff McMenemy
Posted Dec. 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

STRATHAM — Doug Clark, the CEO of New England Footwear, has lofty goals for his small shoemaking company.

"When I die I want my tombstone to say this is the guy that showed the way in returning lost industries back to America," Clark said during an interview at his company's Stratham headquarters.

Clark, whose company designs GoLite Footwear, a brand he bought from Timberland where he worked for 14 years, believes a new method of making sneakers that his company developed could help pave the way for the return of shoemakers to New England.

There are 55 parts in the average sneaker, Clark said as he dumped a pile of shoe parts on a conference room table, including cement.

"Cement is not a foot-friendly material and it's heavy so we said 'what if we just take a piece of fabric, put it in a mold, put a polymer in it that binds the whole thing together and that gets rid of the cement,'" Clark said.

He maintains his company has proven it can make sneakers and shoes out of a mold, "rather than a stitching line," which means they can manufacture shoes in the United State for 10 percent less than importing them from China.

"No politician has said this is important and I say 'wait a minute how can this not be important,'" Clark said. "We've lost this entire industry."

Clark's employees made a prototype using their process — right now his company's shoes are designed at his plant in Stratham but manufactured in Asia — proving the concept works and they used all New England companies to do it.

An influx of jobs

"Think about what it would do to the economy of New England if we were making a fraction even 10 percent of the shoes China is making, that would put thousands and thousands and thousands of people back to work," Clark said.

But in order to do that, he needs to find investors that will help him build a $5 million factory, Clark said.

"Our goal is to build a factory here that starts by making our shoes and eventually makes other shoes," he said.

Clark said as recently as the 1970s there were hundreds of shoe factories in New England.

"We think we can return a lot of the whole industry back to New England," Clark said.

Clark is optimistic he will find investors to make his dream come true, but acknowledged it's been a struggle to get anyone to believe the shoe industry can rebound in America.

"I have met with 50 private equity and venture capitalists and I can't get anyone to even listen and I'm not afraid to say that," Clark said. "They say shoes and ask what's your markup and I say 45 percent and they say that's not good enough."

But after some recently publicity, including a report on CNBC, the calls have started to come in.

"I started getting calls from 10 to 12 small- to medium-sized companies saying 'I want you to make our shoe,'" Clark said. "I've even gotten calls from big companies saying they want to be joint venture partners with us. I'm feeling hope finally."

The innovative approach to manufacturing shoes is reflected in the way his company designed the GoLite sneakers.

Most sneakers are designed with a soft piece of foam under your foot, but for people running on trails, which GoLite sneakers are made for, there isn't enough "alignment stability," when someone hits a rock or anything else.

"The good thing about a mid-sole is it cushions, the bad thing about a mid-sole is it creates stability problems," Clark said. "The whole twisting of the ankle up and down is what creates all the injuries."

So in an effort to provide stability to trail runners, they made GoLite sneakers in a different way.

An 'epiphany'

"Our big epiphany was you don't make a shock absorber for under the seats, you make an SUV with shock absorbers under a rigid chassis," Clark said. "We said what happens if we do soft against the ground instead of soft against the foot."

The company engineered springs that compress when they hit something unstable, Clark said.

"If you hit one rock with one of these, instead of having it knock you over, which happens in a conventional shoe, the sole will compress all by itself and the rest of the foot can come down," Clark said.

He's hopeful he can find an investor for the factory quickly.

"I want to turn our core competency from being a branding company to being a manufacturing company," he said.

One way he might be able to do that is through a federal program that allows foreign investment in the country to create American jobs.

"I love the irony that I can take Chinese money and bring it here and create American jobs, it's a terrific twist," Clark said. "It's like the circle of life."

Right now his company is scouting locations in Raymond in particular as his Stratham location sets to open a retail store in the next two weeks.

"I think the timing is right for this and I don't want to miss the window," Clark said.